The ALIF approach is a surgical technique mainly used to operate a damaged disk in the lumbar area of the spine. The operation involves approaching the spine through an incision in the abdomen, removing the damaged disk and substituting it with a suitable intervertebral implant.
The intervertebral implant mainly comprises a hollow cage, which is inserted between the two vertebral bodies and filled with autogenic bone graft or the like in order to promote bone growth and eventual fusion of the two bodies.
Moreover, the implant comprises a fixing plate solidly attached to the hollow cage. The fixing plate may or may not protrude out of the intervertebral space and is fixed to the anterior sides of the two adjacent vertebral bodies, usually by means of two or more bone screws. The main function of the fixing plate and screws is that of improving primal stability of the whole implant.
A drawback of the ALIF approach lies in the fact that, above the fifth lumbar vertebra, the major blood vessels are located directly in front of the spine. Therefore, the surgeon has to perform a dissection of the vessels in order to determine a surgical access for the insertion of the intervertebral plate. This preliminary operation is time-consuming and challenging.
In view of the foregoing, the technical problem underlying the present invention is to provide an intervertebral implant which can be inserted and fixed on a patient's spine above the fifth lumbar vertebra, without the need of dissecting the blood vessels.